Clemson TIF litigants enter mediation Sept. 24

Pickens County, schools have disputed city's economic development program for months

PICKENS - The parties in a dispute over a Clemson economic development program have agreed to sit down and hash out their differences in front of a retired Circuit Court judge,

Thomas W. Cooper Jr. of Manning will spend Sept. 24 and 25 in a Pickens courtroom to mediate differences between the city of Clemson and the two local governments that have challenged its tax-increment financing, or TIF, program.

The School District of Pickens County and the Pickens County Council sued Clemson on May 15.

The dispute arose over the city collecting much more tax money than originally estimated on hundreds of designated TIF properties around the city.

TIF programs, in practice all over the country, finance economic development projects such as improved roads and parks with gains in tax revenue on designated parcels. This means that increases in tax revenue that would normally be split among all local governments go entirely to one — in this case, Clemson, since 1999.

Clemson has already spent about $11.4 million in TIF money on projects that officials had estimated would need $8 million, according to city records summarized in the lawsuit. By the time the TIF program expires in 2017, Clemson will have collected about twice what it originally estimated.

City officials have said they took on all the debt risk of financing major infrastructure projects. They have also said that property values outside the city's TIF parcels have increased in value — largely due to public beautification projects that have encouraged private investment everywhere.

Clemson Mayor J.C. Cook said the city wants to sort out its differences with the other local governments. Attempts at mediation failed this past spring, and a Pickens County judge asked that the parties sit down again before the case goes to court.

"We wanted to work it out all along, but we don't want to give the whole farm away," Cook said.

Pickens County administrator Chap Hurst said Thursday that the parties may still end up in court if mediation fails. If a deal is reached, he said, all the public bodies will still have to vote on it individually.

He said the loss of tax money diverted to the city for economic development projects — even on a single TIF parcel — is hurting county and school operations.

An apartment complex on property worth very little when Clemson's TIF program was launched in 1998 is this year getting a tax bill of $165,840. Of that amount, $1,982 will go to schools and $802 will go to the county.